Father Loss and More

Fathers can be lost in many ways—- in drastic ways, like death, divorce or abandonment or in as less extreme situations, like unavailability or unpredictability.

 

To a large extent, our identity is defined by our father and we have to  know him in order to know ourselves. In other words, an absent father leaves a gapping hole in our sense of self, inspiring authors to return to the theme of fatherlessness time and again.

Mona Simpson’s novel The Lost Father gyrates around an abandoning Egyptian father for whom the search usurps her entire life.

Said Sayrafiezadeh’s memoir of a political childhood, When Skateboards Will be Free, explores the relationship with his father who (supposedly) disappeared in order to plan an anticipated revolution.

A father who in some ways is unrelated, constitutes a kind of  loss.

For example, Ms. H. suffered the consequences of a distant father who blamed her for all her problems. In essence, her father had provided little guidance, and worse, badgered her constantly for a lack of progress in graduate school Eventually, her father agreed to participate in family therapy. When he was able to own his responsibility for failing to provide adequate emotional support, she was able to move forward and to finish her dissertation. 

A sudden shift in behavior may represent a kind of loss. Ms. N. ‘s father changed from a gentle, affectionate man to an unpredictable presence when he physically struck her without warning for contradicting him. In her psychotherapeutic work, she realized how his erratic behavior had affected her life and relationship choices.

Conclusion: The father plays a major role in who we are and who we become; his absence may occupy the center stage of a person’s life.

Dear Reader, I welcome your comments. jsimon145@gmail.com

Father-Daughter Bonds

As we celebrate Father’s Day this month, I’d like to focus on the father-daughter bond which until relatively recently had been neglected in favor of exploring the father-son relationship.

In fact, the father determines much of his daughter’s future attitudes toward both love and work. Because he walks the narrow line between affection and seduction, the father’s task to parent may be especially difficult and complex.

One to whom we can be eternally grateful is Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, who discovered the diary she had written while hiding with her family in an attic in the Netherlands for two years during the Nazi invasion. Anne and her father were very close.  She loved her father dearly and wrote often of their affectionate relationship.

About his daughter, Frank commented,

 “I must say, I was very much surprised by the deep thoughts Anne had. It was quite a different Anne I had known as my daughter...And my conclusion is, since I had been in very good terms with Anne, that most parents don’t know really their children.”

From this reflection, we can garner wisdom. In spite of years of proximity, parents and children share a characteristic of every other interpersonal relationship, the aspect of the unknowable.  Fathers can’t entirely know their daughters, regardless of how responsible, sensitive and attentive they are.

So how should they proceed? The answer is both simple in its dictum and highly intricate in its execution:  to parent with an open and curious mind while homing in on a child’s attributes and avoiding negative criticism.

Conclusion: The parenting role of the father to his daughter may be one of the most difficult and significant of human relationships.

Dear Reader, I look forward to your comments.

jsimon145@gmail.com

Intimacy, a Hierarchy (with Thanks to Abraham Maslow)

The word “intimacy” has a broad range of meanings, referring to familiarity with a person, place, thing, or even a time in history.

 

In this blog, I’ll focus on intimacy in our personal relationships.

Found in many varieties, Intimacy is a vital ingredient in parent-child relationships, to friendship, to the sexual and psychological intimacy of life-time mates. (Although many of us probably think first of sexual intimacy, my dictionary lists it in sixth place.)

A common misconception is the belief that we have to know someone well to regard the relationship as intimate.   Otto Frank, Ann Frank’s father who discovered her diaries and had them published, realized how little he knew about his daughter. Here are his words,  “I must say, I was very much surprised by the deep thoughts Anne had. It was quite a different Anne I had known as my daughter...And my conclusion is, since I had been in very good terms with Anne, that most parents don’t know really their children.”

The antithesis of intimacy is the need to control the other. Often this barrier to intimacy stems from fear and can be explored—in therapy or in other ways— with positive results. 

Crises of intimacy offer fertile land for growth. This occurred in the K. family. When Ms. K returned to college, her husband objected; she was no longer available to cook dinner and care for their son after school. She encouraged her husband, who worked at home, to adjust. A year later, he realized that he’d benefitted. He’d learned to cook and liked it, and he deepened the bond with his son.

On my visit to Japan about ten years ago, I heard about the cultural  marital crisis. Husbands were retiring and expecting their wives to cater to them all day long. But the wives, accustomed to having their days free, objected. If they wanted to stay happily married, the husbands had to learn to take their wives’ needs into account. As a result, the relationships became more intimate.

We’re complex beings, and there is always more to learn. Caring is more important than “knowing.”  Are we interested, receptive, curious? The element of surprise can fuel a sense of newness and add excitement when we’re open to it.

Degrees of intimacy can be superimposed on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  On the basic level, we gratify creature comforts—the physiological needs for food, water, warmth and rest. Next comes the need for safety and security.  Farther up the ladder is our psychological need to belong and have friends and relationships and above that, are feelings  of esteem, prestige and accomplishment. The top rung brings self-fulfillment and self-actualization with the achievement of our full potential, the ability to create in a given field of endeavor.

In my blog of December 14, 2015 (Gratitude for Our Times (& a Peek into the Life & Times of Rose Kennedy), I compared Rose and Joseph Kennedy with the power couples of today. Rose lived in a patriarchal society and her husband, Joseph, dominated the family. Today’s power couples, like the Gateses and the Zuckerbergs, have an equal, collaborative partnership as they work on their creative and philanthropic endeavors.

Conclusion:  We have progressed to expect caring, cooperation, and collaboration in our intimate relationships.

Dear Reader, I welcome your thoughts. jsimon145@gmail.com

Should We Just Get Over It?

How many times do we hear from a friend or acquaintance, the irritating advice, “Oh, just get over it.”

The list of  “it’s” can range from a loss of a loved one to divorce to financial troubles to a trivial event like a bad haircut. In general, the advice-giver has heard your story several times and is frustrated at his/her own inability to “do something,” as well as your inability to move on from the traumatic event.

If it’s a serious matter, we may dwell on it for a while, continuing to mull it over and view it from a variety of angles. Mourning the loss of a loved one can last as long as a lifetime. A person with post-traumatic stress disorder may revisit and relive a trauma in repeated nightmares and flashbacks that can last for months or years.

Some people hold on to an “it” as a life-defining experience. For example, Ms. W’s mother died in childbirth, and shortly thereafter, the father blamed and abandoned her. One does not ‘get over’ these transformative tragedies. Nevertheless, repeating the story at every social gathering can repulse or drive away people, leaving the unfortunate one feeling alone and desolate.

Sometimes well-meaning sympathizers won’t let us forget the unfortunate event, even though we’re ready to move on. A woman whom I met in India had lost her son in a highway accident. Paradoxically, it was her friends who repeated the events of the tragedy and couldn’t allow her to get over her loss. As a result, she had to distance herself from them and found a gratifying project—opening her home to tourists for whom she could prepare her gourmet dinners.

That said, most of us could use people around us who can reflect and provide words of advice, pinning down a theme, or pointing out a tendency to repeat and isolate.

To return to a trivial event: I obsessed about a bad haircut for a few days to various people who were most helpful. “I have a stylist to recommend,” someone said; another suggested,   “Go talk to  your hairdresser.” This kind of concrete suggestion served us all. I received sympathy and my audience felt useful.

The ‘it’ only becomes problematic when the individual is unable to re-engage in a productive, rewarding life – joining activities and socializing.

In summary, an awareness of the impact on others, with an eye toward the kind of response we’d like, can help us decide to “get over it.”

Only the individual can decide to “just get over it” or take it to another dimension such as one of these options:

1.     Move the episode from center to off-stage in your relationships.

2.     Join a group that focuses on the theme.

3.     Keep a journal.

4.     Find a role model who has negotiated a similar event.

5.     Recognize the need for psychotherapy or counseling.

Conclusion:  What matters is that the individual himself accept the time and energy needed to metabolize and integrate the psychic change in order to continue with life in the present.

Dear Reader, I welcome your thoughts and experiences. jsimon145@gmail.com

Unraveling and How to Prevent It

The word ‘unravel’ means a kind of taking apart. In a psychological sense, the feeling is horrifying, discombobulating, analogous to a ship lost at sea in a storm, with a broken-down engine, a shattered rudder,  a mal-functioning compass with no sign of rescue in sight.

In literature, Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes (Shakespeare’s contemporary with whom he celebrated a four-hundredth anniversary this April) embodies the classic example of a man who verges on the border of sanity and insanity as he battles windmills. He’s fortunate to have a helpmate, Sancho Panza, who tries to stabilize him.

In the nonfiction world, the psychological state of unraveling can happen to any of us, given the nature and degree of stress lying beyond our personal endurance .We can  be influenced by external forces or changes in the environment: relocation, loss of a loved one, financial problems, job loss, as well as intrinsic factors like physiology, biochemistry and illnesses.

We’re vulnerable to this horrific state throughout our lifetime but the impact of stresses changes. For example, losing a parent uproots a child to a greater extent than an adult.

The relative invisibility of the state increases the treachery. Unless a person has experienced it, the condition is frequently misunderstood. For this reason, the sufferer feels alone, isolated, crazy, often wishing he could trade his psychological discomfort for a physical malady to receive sympathy.

Stresses that unmoor a given individual can seem to  like a positive event to others—like a job promotion. But some are burdened by added responsibilities. For example, Ms. K, a teacher, was promoted from teaching a class to heading a department.  Overwhelmed by the burden, she asked to return to her original job.

A personal vignette embodies an example of changing course to stay afloat. I lived with my father during the first year of medical school. At the end of the year, Dad declared that the arrangement wasn’t working, and said I’d have to leave his home. Shocked by the news, I reviewed my options: should I dash home to the comfort of my mother’s house? That choice would mean withdrawing from medical school and abandoning my goal. So I nixed that possibility; instead, I found a tiny room in the YWCA nearer the school than Dad’s house. In brief, I shifted my focus from family relations to my studies, and sidestepped the danger of unraveling.

The questions to ask is: What uproots and what anchors us? Discovering the answer and following the steps that connect and stabilize us, may prevent the treacherous state.

Here are a few suggestions:

Meditation

Positive beliefs

Faith/religion

Nurturing relationships with friends, family, pets

Interests and or Projects: writing, reading, sports etc.

Home and Homeland

Conclusion: Identifying the factors that stabilize us can prevent the torment of unraveling.

Dear Reader, I welcome your thoughts and experiences. jsimon145@ gmail.com

The Bridge from Judgment to Nurturance: Considering the Pope’s Message

Recently, Pope Francis surprised much of the world by advising that the Catholic Church  nurture rather than judge single parents, gay people and unmarried straight couples who are living together.

 

Although he was referring to the church’s stance on marriage and divorce, his message has far-ranging implications and builds a bridge between the land of religion and  the land of psychology.

There are probably infinite ways to apply his  philosophy of replacing judgment with nurturance in our everyday life.  A valuable exercise would be to list various circumstances to which his words apply in our personal lives.

Here are some on my list:

 1.Reconsider the word ‘"lazy." Let’s try to understand what lies beneath the disparaging label. Behind inaction  often lurks a fear of one kind or another. Some of us even fear failure and success simultaneously.

For example, Ms. K. said to me, “If they like my sculpture, I fear I’ll ultimately disappoint them with my next piece.”

With this sort of thought fixated in a person’s mind, the safest course of action is inaction which can resemble the judgmental word, "lazy."

 2.  We often judge a person on the basis of intelligence, but it is more helpful to nurture someone’s  (especially a child’s) interests and curiosity. For instance, Einstein didn’t speak until he was 4 years old and people assumed he wasn’t smart. Recently, the psychologist Angela Duckworth has identified grit, a combination of passion and perseverance, as being more significant  than I.Q in predicting achievement.  Acknowledging the fact that each of us has our own gifts helps to replace judgment with nurturance.

3. We judge mistakes...even make fun of ourselves and others. A better tactic is to look beyond the error and learn from it. Remembering that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin from a mistake when his Petri dish became contaminated by a mold supports the idea that we learn from what seems like a mistake or accident.

4. In the past, depression and addiction were judged as a weakness in character.   Now we that these disorders stem from biochemical imbalances that require treatment. 

5. Instead of judging overweight friends, we can nurture their efforts to exercise and adjust their diets.

How do we cross the bridge from judgment to nurturance? Realizing that the passage of time alters the terrain and changes public and private perceptions can help lead to progress and peace.

Conclusion: To apply the Pope’s words to a diversity of situations enhances life on our planet. 

Dear Reader, I hope you’ll try the exercise for yourself. Please share your examples and experience. jsimon145@gmail.com

The Double Vision of Blind Faith

Faith is blind when we believe in something unseen without any or sufficient evidence. Underlying many of our actions is our belief that it will lead to the desired goal.

Many people  act as if they don’t believe (or accept) that exercise and a balanced diet lead to better health and a sense of well-being (although evidence exists). 

It is as if they practice 'blind faith' until they experience the holistic benefits themselves.

What we regard as “blind faith” is personal and may change with time like fashions. The great scientist Louis Pasteur tried to explain the invisible contamination by microbes. “The world into which you wish to take us is really too fantastic,” the French newspaper La Presse printed in 1860. Pasteur began to devise tests to prove his belief that air contained living organisms invisible to the naked eye.

At times, a story demands more credibility than we can muster, so we change some of the details to reconcile ourselves to the “truth.” Mr. J., a Christian, had to reframe for himself the concept of Christ and the crucifixion to render it credible. He was able to accept that Christ was crucified, not for the reasons often accepted, but for the fact that Jesus was a political dissident.

Mary Karr, American poet, essayist and memoirist, surprised her friends when she turned to Jesus 20 years ago. “Wouldn’t you give a crutch to a one-legged man?” she answered by posing a question.

For me, Karr's metaphor of a one-legged-person is apt and applies to many. Most of us are crippled to a greater or lesser degree by life’s imperfect circumstances; suffering and loss is inherent. In addition, the human condition is riddled with paradoxes and contradictions. Belief or faith can help us keep our balance on the rocky terrain of life. But the matter is a tricky one. Do we use our faith to pave the way for possibilities for all, or to judge and destroy others?

I can’t end this blog without addressing the elephant in the room—the blind faith of the terrorist suicide bombers. In Islamic practice, a person killed in jihad (the militaristic practice of murdering disbelievers) is believed to become a martyr who achieves a special status in paradise. Clearly, there can never be a proof for this conviction.

Conclusion: In truth, blind faith has the power to both save and kill. At times, a belief morphs to perceptible reality, as in the case of Pasteur, whose faith in science and the power of observation led to discoveries and improved our lives in remarkable ways.

Dear Reader, I look forward to your comments. jsimon145@gmail.com.